


The Best Medicine

by hrhrionastar



Series: The Honeyverse [28]
Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Episode: s01e22 Reckoning, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 03:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kahlan asked Nicholas to teach his sisters some Creatormas carols, Darken doesn't think <i>this</i> is what she had in mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> At the time of this fic, Nicholas is 10, Dara is about to turn 6, and Dacey is 4.

"The screelings are loose and the Keeper may win," said Nicholas.  
  
Rather than greet his announcement with horror, as any sensible person would have done, Dara and Dacey repeated the words obediently, Dacey with a lisp that Darken suspected was assumed.  
  
He leaned back in his armchair and rubbed his lips. His three children stood in front of the nursery fire, Nicholas with his back to it gesturing emphatically, Dara frowning in concentration, and little Dacey preening and smiling to show the gap where one of her baby teeth had fallen out. They did not look like a trio of dismal, probably useless prophets, or the Keeper's minions.  
  
More properly they should be considered Saint Nick's minions, Darken supposed, since each was decked out in Rahl red and Creatormas green. Kahlan had asked Nicholas to teach his sisters some carols, as part of her evil scheme to make the three of them sing at the Creatormas ball in front of the whole court.  
  
Creatormas carols appeared to have changed since Darken was a child—not that he had ever sung any.  
  
Nicholas had reached the second verse, and, either impatient with his sisters or else impressed with their skill at memorization, he spoke two lines at once:  
  
"Walk away slow or they'll tear you apart. And laugh all day long as they rip out your heart."  
  
"Slow _ly_ ," corrected Darken, as Dara and Dacey began to mumble a high-pitched chorus of 'walk away…'  
  
It was his first comment for at least an hour, and the children abandoned their project to crowd around his armchair. Dacey climbed into his lap, and Nicholas drifted close enough for a hug, if only he weren't too grown-up for that now that he was ten years old. Darken considered, and then put an arm around Nicholas's waist and drew him in to perch on the arm of the chair anyway.  
  
It was rare that Darken could spend a whole afternoon in the nursery, especially during the chaotic weeks between the autumn festival and the Creatormas ball. He preferred to leave all the arrangements to Kahlan, and whatever minions she chose to employ, but even leaving aside the celebrations this time of year was worst for crises in the empire. Something about the fleeing sun made rebels in the Midlands set fire to things, alliances wear thin…even the Mord'Sith took to staring into space as if planning their own Yule celebrations.  
  
And then there were all the tedious traditions of the season, which Darken told himself he only tolerated for Kahlan and the children's sake. The tree, the gifts, the _caroling_.  
  
The People's Palace was certainly much different than when Darken had grown up here. The winters weren't as dark, for one thing. He was at a loss to account for it.  
  
Kahlan was plotting something with the children's nurse, and Mistress Garen had flatly refused to help Nicholas instruct his sisters in singing, and now stood with her back to the wall and an expression Darken would've assumed indicated acute aural pain had he not known that Garen, unlike both Dahlia and his wife, was not at all musical.  
  
Not that Nicholas had spent much time on the melody, concentrating instead with grim relish on the lyrics of his latest carol. Lyrics that now made Dara frown and repeat them with a questioning lilt.  
  
"'And laugh all day as they rip out your heart'?" she asked. "Why all day? I mean how long does it take to rip someone's heart out?"  
  
She put a hand over her own heart to emphasize her point, and looked from her brother to her father, searching for the clue to this mystery.  
  
Darken stared at his daughter for a moment. Then he laughed.  
  
He laughed and laughed, until Nicholas and Dacey joined in. Dacey got so excited she started to bounce on the edge of the chair, and finally fell into Darken's lap, giggling helplessly.  
  
Dara crossed her arms and glared at her family.  
  
Unfortunately the expression reminded Darken irresistibly of her mother, and he laughed harder at the thought of Kahlan's chagrin, were she here to listen to Dara's perfectly logical question.  
  
He glanced at Garen. Her face was impassive, but it was plain that she kept it so only by the use of heroic self-control.  
  
Dacey patted the front of Dara's dress and said, "Got you! I'm a screeling, and I've got your heart!"  
  
Dara lifted her little sister out of Darken's lap and they tumbled together to the rug, Dara tickling Dacey unmercifully. "Maybe, but _I_ 've got _you_!" she retorted.  
  
Darken fought to regain his control as Nicholas and Garen separated the sisters. Dacey bared her teeth to show Garen the new gap, happily showing off.  
  
It had been a long time since Darken had laughed like that. As if no one were listening, as if there was no one to impress or influence. Totally without restraint. Thinking it over, he wasn't sure he ever had before.  
  
Panis Rahl had assumed signs of amusement in his son and heir, like signs of happiness or anticipation or affection, were the marks of both weakness and wickedness. And after his death there had been the lingering threat of the Seeker and the day-to-day hardships of ruling a restless empire to keep his son, not from pleasure, but certainly from laughter.  
  
Darken loved Kahlan. But even now that their union was less shadowed by its ill beginning, in deceit and coercion, the fact remained that she was a serious person, despite an interesting taste for irony that seemed to Darken crucial to one who belonged to an order known for its intrepid travelers wearing spotless white dresses.  
  
She should laugh more, Darken thought. There were few things more rewarding than bringing a smile to his wife's perfect lips.  
  
Perhaps this interlude would do that, if Kahlan could let go of her shock at Nicholas's idea of a Creatormas carol. Perhaps he was deliberately trying to convince his parents to forgo their project of having him perform?  
  
What a shame for outgoing Dacey not to get to sing, though. Between her attention-arresting ways and Nicholas being the oldest and the heir, Dara sometimes seemed a little lost.  
  
Darken held out his arms to her. Dara climbed into his lap, and he kissed her forehead. "I love you," he said. "You know that, right?"  
  
"Yes, Daddy," said Dara. "I love you, too."  
  
Darken hugged her close.  
  
"Daddy?" asked Dara.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Why _do_ the screelings take so long to rip out hearts? Are their fingers really clumsy?"  
  
"Mm-hmm," Darken murmured into sweet-smelling hair. He was careful not to let Dara see his smile.  
  
"Daddy? Are the screelings going to take _my_ heart?"  
  
Darken pulled back until he could see his daughter's anxious blue eyes. He no longer felt like laughing.  
  
"Never," he swore. "I promise."

**Author's Note:**

> the lines of Nicholas's Creatormas carol are from a song in TG's books.


End file.
